Bangkok - Laos has beefed up patrols to prevent "any untoward happenings" in Champassak province, part of the tri-border area where Laos, Cambodia and Thailand meet, state radio broadcasts said Thursday.

Champassak's military command said the increased vigilance was necessary to prevent "untoward happenings" in the increasingly sensitive border area which has been drawn in to a Thai-Cambodian dispute, Radio Laos said in a broadcast monitored in Bangkok.

Pattani, Thailand - Suspected Muslim militants killed five civilians and injured six in two attacks in Thailand's troubled deep South, police said Tuesday.

Six men on motorcycles, believed to be separatist insurgents, opened fire with M-16 rifles on a house Monday night in the Thung Yang Daeng district of Pattani, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, slaying three Thai Muslims, police said.

On the same night in nearby Narathiwat, assailants attacked a pickup on the outskirts of the city, killing two Thai Muslim men and injuring six others travelling in the vehicle.

Bangkok - Thai shares jumped nearly 6 per cent in value Monday on regional and European increases, despite fears of further political troubles.

Bangkok - Anti-government protestors marched through central Bangkok Monday on the eve of a verdict in a key corruption trial against their prime target, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The marchers with the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) listened to speakers accuse the current prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law, of being a Thaksin puppet and demand that he stand down. They also poured scorn on Somchai's promise of a fair investigation into police violence during a protest this month.